


Pinned

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Cotton Candy Garnet, F/F, Fluff, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Renegade Pearl, Tumblr Prompt, Unresolved Romantic Tension, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 02:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14906330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: When Pearl realizes that Garnet is avoiding her deliberately, she takes it upon herself to corner her best friend for answers. // Based on the Tumblr prompt, "I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth."





	Pinned

As a fusion herself, Garnet was widely presumed to be the resident expert among the Crystal Gems’ ranks on the subject. Spinel was too scattered to explain much of anything, got flustered whenever anyone tried to ask, and usually fled somewhere private to avoid further questioning. Consequently, curious Gems came to her with inquiries--what it was like, how it felt, if Ruby and Sapphire were still individually conscious while she existed, if their memories remained intact--and Garnet had quickly learned to redirect those questions, to recommend that her comrades try with someone they cared about. Explaining it wouldn’t do any good, and Garnet couldn’t say for certain that the experience would be the same for anyone else. After all, she’d never asked Spinel, and wasn’t planning to pry.

 

It was  _ profoundly _ frustrating for Pearl, who couldn’t possibly ask Rose to try, for reasons no one ever need know, and so far hadn’t ever experienced it for herself.

 

Because that meant trying to corner Garnet, and for all that her best friend was easy to track down, being that she was the only pink and blue Gem in the rebellion and taller, even, than some of their quartzes, she had a terrible habit of escaping before Pearl could actually ask her about mixed fusion.

 

When it became apparent that Garnet wasn’t just escaping, but actively  _ avoiding _ her, Pearl knew that figuratively cornering her wasn’t going to be enough. 

 

Even Garnet couldn’t predict the Terrifying Renegade dropping from a wall thrice her height and pinning her by the elbows.

 

“I can’t believe you’ve been  _ avoiding _ me,” Pearl said, several steps ahead of a number of conversations that Garnet’s third eye tried to produce simultaneously. The much smaller Gem was on tiptoe, nearly nose-to-nose with her, and Garnet shrank instinctively, caught red-handed. “You’ve been using your future vision to get away from me! I can’t believe it!”

 

“It’s not--” Garnet started, feeling her heart stutter against her ribs, because even if Pearl would have been easy to throw off, she couldn’t imagine actually doing it. Still, Pearl glared up at her with an intensity that even her visor couldn’t protect her from, and Garnet looked askance. She chewed her bottom lip, visibly anxious under Pearl’s scrutiny. “When you put it like that, it sounds… worse.”

 

“Isn’t it what you’ve been doing?” Pearl scowled, and she found herself wishing that Garnet hadn’t taken to wearing her visor ‘round the clock, because while it was useful on the battlefield, it made her harder to read face-to-face--

 

And that left having to gauge her expression from the nose down, which was a little closer to eye-level anyway, but the way Garnet worried her lip at the corner, chapped from a raid to the frozen north only a day ago, was somehow incredibly distracting.

 

And attractive, Pearl realized, and  _ that _ was a thought she shouldn’t be entertaining when she was supposed to be angry. 

 

Pearl’s fingers faltered around the bends of Garnet’s elbows, and she pursed her lips in a frown. “Well?”

 

“It’s--complicated,” Garnet said, and she hoped to the stars that it was dark enough in the shadows that Pearl couldn’t see the color spreading across her cheeks and nose. She couldn’t see any futures where she got out of this without some kind of explanation, though, and she exhaled shakily. Maybe if she said it quickly enough, it would be over sooner. “If you want to fuse with Rose Quartz, you need to ask her, but you won’t, which means--”

 

“Can’t,” Pearl corrected her, finally looking away from Garnet’s lips to see the fusion fidgeting, drumming long fingers against the wall where she was pinned, and the alabaster Gem finally let up, just a little, settling with her heels back against the floor. “I can’t ask Rose.” And Garnet was the only Gem alive she could safely say that to without having to explain  _ why _ . “And the only other Gem I’d want to fuse with is you.”

 

Garnet wished sorely that she’d spoken faster, because of all the futures she could anticipate, this was the one she longed the most for--and dreaded.

 

“We can’t fuse,” Garnet said, and her voice was smaller than Pearl had heard in eons. Before Pearl could ask why, Garnet had pulled a hand away, wiping at tears under her visor before they could spill down her cheeks. “Pearl, I don’t  _ exist _ when Ruby and Sapphire aren’t like this, I don’t--If I could, I would, with you, but…”

 

Wide blue eyes stared up at her, and the anger had completely drained out of the renegade, replaced with concern. “Garnet…?”

 

“It’s too complicated,” Garnet said again, drawing in a shaky breath. “Two different Gems fusing, that’s different, but it would be three of us, of you, if it weren’t stable… I can’t see that type of future. Where I don’t exist. It just goes  _ white _ .”

 

Pearl reached up to draw Garnet’s hand down again, gathering both her palms in her hands. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t… thought of that,” she said, giving her fingers a squeeze. Garnet squeezed back, but said nothing as she tried to regain her composure. The knight sighed, ghosting her fingers over the stones in Garnet’s palms thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how I could… forget, given the circumstances. The entire point of asking you about fusion is that you  _ are _ one, but…” Pearl chuckled dryly, shaking her head. “It was foolish. And inconsiderate. I’m sorry.”

 

“But you forgot, somehow,” Garnet said, carefully avoiding asking, and Pearl nodded. The puzzlement was plain on what Pearl could see of Garnet’s face, full lips pursed in a distinct frown.

 

“You’re the one I would go to, if it were anyone but Rose,” Pearl said at length, clutching her hands against her chest. Garnet could feel Pearl’s heartbeat beneath her sternum, and she flushed vividly. “But if it would mean that you wouldn’t exist afterwards, I couldn’t ask that of you. I can’t see a future for myself without you in it, either.”


End file.
